452 Monthhi Review of Literature. [[Oct. 



and a laudable anxiety to unearth every source of information for the clearing up 

 of all obscurities. From some report received by Huygens, that mathematician 

 spoke of Newton, in some letter, as being in a state of insanity in the year 1694, 

 either from intense application, or from excessive grief at the loss of his chemical 

 laboratory and several MSS. This story was first published in a Life of New- 

 ton, by Biot, and used by him to account for Newton's not having, from that 

 period, done any thing worthy of his early reputation — disabled, in fact, from 

 the overstraining of his faculties. From the same authority, too. La Place con- 

 cludes, he was fit from that time for nothing but theology, to which, according 

 to him, Newton then for the first time betook himself. The origin of this tale, 

 quite new to English readers. Dr. Brewster has been at great pains to trace and 

 develope, and has met with more success than could have been anticipated. 

 Mr. Pryme, Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge, has in his possession 

 a MS. diary, kept by a Mr. Abraham Pryme, a collateral ancestor of his, and a 

 cotemporary of Newton. In this diary Mr. Pryme records, at the date of 

 February 2, 1692, the fact of Newton's papers, containing the results of experi- 

 ments on colours and light being destroyed by fire, and its effect itpon Newton. 

 It is, in short, the old story of his Dog Diamond ; but instead of the prodigious 

 tranquillity with which the philosopher bore the disaster, and of which we have 

 heard a thousand times, Mr. Pryme relates, that when Newton " saw what was 

 done, every one thought he would have run mad, he was so troubled thereat, 

 that he was not himself a month after." The accident must have occurred 

 towards the end of 1691, and according to Mr. Pryme, Newton was "himself 

 again" in a month. But Huygens' report was made in June, 1694, at which 

 time he speaks of him as then beginning to be able to comprehend his own 

 Principia again. In this very interval, however, and about the middle of it, 

 the end of 1692, and beginning of 1693, NewLon wrote his letters to Bentley on 

 the Existence of a Deity — letters which at least shew a degree of power and 

 calmness quite incompatible with the alleged obscuration of his faculties. Still, 

 in September of that year (1693), he describes himself as not having "for a 

 twelvemonth either ate or slept well, or enjoyed his former consistency of mind." 

 The expression is perhaps vague — though at that period it meant steadiness — 

 but the letter itself which contains it is a proof of some strange want of self- 

 possession — for it is written to Pepys, in apparent reply to a message, which it 

 appears Pepys had never sent. The letter is now published for the first time 

 from the MS. in Lord Braybrooke's possession, along with Pepys's correspond- 

 ence in consequence with his nephew. Within three days of this letter was also 

 written to Locke, that singular epistle published recently by Lord King, in which 

 he tells him, he had suspected him of embroiling him with women — had charged 

 him with Hobbism — wished him dead — and ascribed to him some design of 

 selling him an office, &c. — some part of which, and perhaps all, Newton 

 appears, from another letter, about a month afterwards, to have forgotten. In 

 his efforts to clear up this imputation on the soundness of Newton's intellects, 

 in the interval between the accident at Cambridge and Huygens's report. Dr. 

 Brewster has produced two irrefragable instances of illusion, however temporary 

 that illusion may have been. But as to the inferences made by Biot and La 

 Place, nothing can well be more unfounded, or more at variance with facts. 

 For years after, Newton was engaged in matters of complication, that required 

 as clear and steady a brain as in any the most laborious period of his life. As 

 to his theology, indeed, it is of little value, but at all events theology was no 

 new study with him. He had early shared in the theological discussions of his 

 collegiate cotemporaries, and was not at any period, in those discussions, more 

 absurd than the gravest and weightiest of professional divines. 



Treatise on the Origin, Progress, and Present State of the Silk 

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CLOPiEDIA. 



One of the most useful volumes hitherto sent out of Dr. Lardner's manufac- 

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